Is the Sun Setting on Christianity as We Know It?

I often think about how incredible it would be to own a time machine, ala Marty McFly in Back to the Future, and invest in ideas that impacted the culture of America. For example, wouldn't you have loved to have been one of the people who believed that bottling Coca-Cola was a great idea in the early 1900s and invested $50 in the company's stock? Or you knew Ray Kroc was a genius in the 1950s and that McDonald's would take over the world?

When I stop dreaming about my DeLorean traveling 88 miles per hour and whisking me to another era, I look at the present world in which I live and think about the future, particularly as it pertains to the Church in America. Will it more than just survive but be a force for cultural change? Will the church experience a renaissance and change the world as opposed to existing in a state of mere self-preservation? For some innovative pastors and churches, the future is now. They've already felt the stiff cold breeze of the culture's perception of Christians and are working hard to reverse years of well-intentioned leaders drowning out the Gospel message with a counter intuitive message of isolation and separation. But this task can't rest on the shoulders of a few alone--and it certainly isn't up to the church alone, either.

Last week, I experienced a renaissance of my own faith, inspired to think deeply about the message the Church portrays and its impact on culture. Until now, I've seen the need for a shift in the collective thinking of the Church in America, but didn't really know what it should look like. But now I do.

Meet Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS Shoes. While on a trip to Argentina, he was moved with compassion for children in a village who had no shoes. So, he came up with an idea for a shoe company that would give away a pair of shoes to children in need all over the world for every pair of shoes sold. He's given away thousands of shoes and has contracts with almost every major department store in America ... and his company started about a year ago.

Hearing Blake share his story is inspiring, but getting the rest of the story is what really excites me. As a result of his work, he was invited to a fashion designers' awards banquet where he shared a table with some of the biggest names in the fashion designing industry. Blake admits that he's no fashion designer, but he had people at that table listening intently to what he said, yearning to be a part of what he was doing. He's just a Christian who saw a need and not only is influencing the culture of poor children in impoverished places with a practical expression of the Gospel, but he is also provoking fashion designer moguls to rethink the course of their lives.

Christianity as we know it, as it's portrayed in the media, is rapidly disappearing. However, a new generation of Christians are emerging, intent on changing the world through a different expression of the Gospel than their fathers' generation. Churches that serve as merely "Christian clubs" are not only settling into irrelevance, but they're also settling into relative obscurity.

Why the shift? I think the up-and-coming generation of Christians are tired of being defined by what they're against instead of what they're for. Try asking someone you know how they would describe the belief set of a Christian--and they would probably do so by listing a bunch of things Christians are against or can't do. God is for so many things--love, justice, peace, harmony, grace, healing. His people should be as well.

As you ponder your role as a Christian pastor or leader, think about this: What cultural good will you create? How will you help show the world around you what you're for? How will you provoke others to rethink their idea about what it means to be a Christian?